Now that's a catchy title, ain't it? I'm sorry to say the follow through my not be as tantalizing as you think, but it is an interesting tidbit.
Red Hot Strategy, a U.K.-based consultancy firm, is launching an "aggressive" campaign to go after 100 local self-storage companies and help them understand the value of customer service and sales. Red Hot already works with "Big Box" stores and large family-owned businesses. Because of the relative infancy of the U.K. storage industy, operators in that region may actually be underestimating their profit potential (is the underlying premise to the company's mission).
What astonished me is Red Hot's president is none other than Andrea Ogunkoya, who was featured in the January 2006 issue of Inside Self-Storage magazine for having been promoted by New York self-storage developer Storage Deluxe from director of sales and marketing to vice president of operations (she joined the company in October 2004). I was unaware of her U.K. venture or her impressive credentials. In addition to her remarkable resume, she was recently voted one of New York's rising stars and a "Top 40 New York Executive" under the age of 40.
Andrea Ogunkoya, President of Red Hot Strategy
Andrea has 12 years of business-development and creative-marketing experience. For Storage Deluxe, she oversees 19 self-storage facilities in addition to 100 employees and marketing/sales campaigns. She has worked with AT&T, Nortel Networks and MSCO Business Consultancy, and some of her former clients include American Express, IBM and Storage USA. She's also the author of Minority Marketing, a handbook for business and marketing specialists.
I really have to applaud Andrea on her accomplishments, especially in this industry. It's no small feat to educate storage operators on the sales and marketing side of the business, if only because most of them have very little prior training in these arenas. If you're a U.K.-based company, consider getting involved in Red Hot's new campaignit could mean very good things for your bottom line.